


Don't Talk About It

by nevtelenwriting



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Big Brother Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Needs a Nap, Canonical Character Death, Character death only mentioned, Counselor Sam Wilson, First Kiss, Flirting, Frenemies Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson, Frenemies to friends to lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, POV Sam Wilson, Unrequited Love, cuteness, no homo to full homo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 08:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19942936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevtelenwriting/pseuds/nevtelenwriting
Summary: Sam and Bucky navigating being coworkers, then friends, and then uh, they don't talk about it.





	Don't Talk About It

**Author's Note:**

> I'll love Stucky until the day I die but I was thinking of, well, Endgame-compliant angst, where Steve is painfully straight and/or was sincerely ignorant enough to think Bucky was in a good place now without him, cause Bucky probably said so like a sad liar pants, so Steve yeets off and now it's just Sam and Bucky, and this was born.

To make their Super Coworkers tag-team work, there were a few things they just didn’t bring up.

One: Any mention of the Captain America comic books, specifically the ones with the do-gooder sidekick in red spandex tights posing like a maniacal Nazi-punching Peter Pan named _Jimmy Barnes._ Sam didn’t, but sometimes the theme song _somehow_ got stuck in his head and what else was he supposed to do, not hum it? Also, that existential dread on the most prolific assassin in history’s face before he buried his face in a pillow with an outraged groan for the thirtieth time? Worth it.

Two: after Bucky discovered memes, any and _all_ “caw, caw, motherfucker” references were fucking _banned_ , because the last time he played it Sam was taking off from a roof under fire and nearly crashed them both into a skyscraper. Super soldier asshole assassins could heal, Sam could _not._

Three: Trying, at any time, to convince Bucky that the hard candy nowadays was in anyway _good_.

Four: Bucky trying, at any time, to convince Sam that movies in the 1930s were _better_. The contention between effects, effort, and talent may have caused them to be banned from Cheesecake Factory. All of them.

Five: Whether Star Trek Original or Star Trek Next Gen was better. They did agree on never, ever, watching the remakes ever again.

Six: Anything about Steve hurling himself into the past. Mostly, anything about that particular burn. Even after Bucky explained he told Steve to do it, told him he deserved to find some peace, for once, Sam didn’t fucking buy it. He didn’t get it. There was something neither of them were sharing and after Steve passed it didn’t feel right prying, anyway. Sam still felt a little sour about it, too, so this one, they could agree on.

Oddly enough, Hydra and Bucky’s former clandestine tortured attack dog status were not off limits. While Bucky didn’t exactly go out of his way to give anyone the gory details, he didn’t mind answering questions and after a long, patient conversation about boundaries, Bucky started telling Sam when something their level of harassing and haranguing started broaching not-okay territory. He learned how to say no. Everything from missions to take-out orders, Bucky learned how to say _no_ and Sam could simultaneously victory-march and honest to god cry.

Thing was Sam found a solid niche for himself helping veterans for a long time before Steve. Sure, he was crawling out of his own skin sometime close to meeting Steve and jumped at the opportunity to do good a different way again, but he still knew how to do good, here. He had learned how to be pretty decent counselor, too, if he did say so himself. Sam sure as hell was gonna give Bucky a hard ass time whenever he could, because he could, but because he also refused to treat the guy like broken glass or a grenade with the pin surreptitiously missing. He also knew how to not push too hard on triggers or his past, gave him the room to breathe in it, heal from it.

So Sam was patient, and didn’t question when Bucky chose to leave Wakanda, instead settled into a small apartment in D.C. somewhat close to Sam and offered to watch his back as the only non-geriatric expert on how to throw the shield without slam-dunking the edge into his face. Bucky also mentioned that most of the messes Sam would be tackling were probably going to be Bucky’s anyway, and he might need at least _one_ slightly springier superhuman watching his ass.

Sam didn’t ask why he decided now to give up the peace, give up the quiet life he so desperately tried to carve out for himself, checking in with him and Steve and looking genuinely, easily happy during those phone calls before Thanos. He didn’t need ask. The world had imploded. Steve was…Steve was.

So Sam also didn’t push hard on Bucky following him around like a lost puppy half the time after that, the other half Bucky just fucking _gone_ , who knew where but he came back in one piece, occasionally busted up, but no worse for wear than like, the actual missions they were sent on now. This worked for them. Go to work, hang out occasionally, learn a new thing they couldn’t bring up and Sam learned a new thing to gently try to work through without Bucky noticing he was finding gentle ways to work through it. Sleep sometime between harebrained missions, maybe hang out again, maybe start hanging out more. Maybe also stop wheedling so hard, too.

He wasn’t sure whether to call them friends, really. It was more like Steve Fucking Rogers had yanked both of them into his supernova of an orbit and vanished without a trace, leaving two assholes spiraling around each other and grasping for hand holds in a future they unexpectedly popped up into like daises. Those handholds happened to be, more often than not, each other.

Bucky became less the somber Winter Soldier, and more, well, Bucky Fucking Barnes. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, hellions at large. Sam had read one, maybe two biographies by Tim Dugan and Jim Morita that when Steve wasn’t inspiring them to be better versions of themselves and Bucky wasn’t fretting over them like an exasperated mother hen, Barnes and Rogers were absolute _rat bastards_. They were the worst of them all when given the chance, goading, betting, and daring each other to one up until even the other Howlies feared itching powder in their cots at night. Steve was a secret devil when he wanted to be and Bucky was the most charming, mischievous flirt to harass western Europe the war had ever seen.

Sam could never bring himself to believe those old biographies, figured that they were just as conflated by the legend as everything else. Then he met Steve. Then he, finally, met Bucky.

Don’t get him wrong, Bucky was still an _awful_ mother hen that maybe, probably, sort of kept Sam from dying occasionally. Every mission consisted of Bucky full on harassing him like a big-brother-dad, grumbling to himself, and not to himself:

_"Oh my god you're just like Steve, you're gonna give me a god damn ulcer.”_

_“You cannot throw yourself into a helicarrier, you don’t have supersoldier guts!”_

_“Oh, great, didn’t know a bird could regenerate limbs, tell me how that works for you, Wilson.”_

Sam couldn’t pass up another opportunity to see the most fearsome man in the world look like his _Nana Wilson_ when he dived bombed off a building with a glitchy wing, so Sam would say, “Hey, Barnes, watch this.” And revel in the actual _scream_ he pulled from his over-tired friend’s throat.

“You’re gonna single handedly turn me grey before my absurdly long life span you fucker!”

Sometime after that, when Bucky finally realized Sam was goading him on purpose, Sam saw a shift in his eyes, something that made him think almost of the Soldier but impetuous, teasing in a school-yard way, and then Bucky started matching him for panic attacks during missions.

There were a few things not allowed on missions, then.

One: Caw caw mother fucker was the first.

Two: “In Soviet Russia, Soldier does…” was the second, and okay, Sam could embrace the poor taste.

Three: Painting Sam’s wings any neon color on the inside with unicorn decals that made him go blind for half a second and trigger a heart attack.

Four: Asking a favor from Shuri to program the metal arm to play a different stock laugh track every time it recalibrated.

Five: Asking a favor from Shuri to program Redwing with Captain Picard’s voice for commands, that was just _cold_.

Six: Covering every handle of the absurd amount of weaponry on Bucky’s person with powder paint so he looked like a Pride Parade gone horribly right after taking down a Project X sleeper cell.

Progressively more dangerous harassment aside, Bucky leaned hard on Sam, too. Maybe not in a loud way some veterans Sam worked with before used to, but Bucky Barnes had nightmares that would put Freddy Kruger to shame. He had more bad nights than good that left him wide awake, preferable to what the deranged roulette wheel of memories wanted to throw at the poor guy’s subconscious.

Sam had to guess at first because of experience, but also the chronic blue under Bucky’s eyes. After enough of those days Sam offered up his phone for a text or a call if he was having an insomnia night, lied and said he was a night owl, and let Bucky call him when he couldn’t sleep. It didn’t happen too often, less than Sam figured was warranted based on the hollowness still perpetual his eyes some mornings, but hey, at least there were some.

When they had their first few missions, he realized it was worse than he thought. Bucky was silent as the grave when he slept, still as the Soldier but Sam caught the flinching, the shaking breath, the wake ups like an electroshock had been forced through him. Bucky never said a word, wouldn’t look Sam in the eye most mornings after, couldn’t even bring himself to wheedle him.

The bad night phone calls became bad night sleepovers, also Sam’s idea, and on nights Bucky couldn’t sleep—sometimes working up enough courage to tell Sam he remembered when Hydra made him take out a whole village and shoot the ones that didn’t take to the nerve gas—Sam just made them hot chocolate and watched Bucky’s favorite old movies, even if they didn’t touch the goldmines of the 1980s.

It was nice, actually. Maybe, yeah, Sam could say Bucky was a _friend_ , not a colleague, anymore.

The first time Bucky accidentally called him "Steve" on a mission, Bucky looked like he just about carved his own guts out. He was so horrified he disappeared for a few _days_ after the mission, and they didn’t talk about it.

It happened again, but before Bucky could throw himself into another existential crisis Sam beat him to the punch with, "What? I have a _much_ better ass, this is platinum level, I am _offended_."

Honest to god, Bucky laughed so hard he almost shot himself with his rifle.

Then it was Sam’s turn for an existential crisis.

Sam wasn’t sure if there was exactly a _moment_ when their jibes at each other just turned into softer jabs, and then softer wheedling, but Sam full-stopped on an epiphany that their ribbing was suspiciously turning into _flirting_.

It was just another normal day joshing each other. Bucky predictably was mother-henning, and Sam responded to the quip with, "Aw, you just don't wanna lose America's ass."

Bucky didn’t miss a beat snarking back, a wild turn in his smirking mouth that told Sam he wasn’t that pissed, "Oh yeah? Well that grade A platinum ass isn’t gonna watch itself, it’s a crying shame not to, right?"

Sam didn’t know how he could make something like _that_ sound so threatening and like an invitation all in one, but Sam was sure he was gonna turn purple from blushing so hard. Also, Sam screeched to a full on halt and wondered where the _fuck_ that exchange came from.

On the ride back in silence, comfortable on Bucky’s part given the languid recline against the back seat, while Sam gripped the steering wheel with blanching knuckles, he started replaying a _lot_ of their conversations over the last few months. There was the ragging back and forth about Sam’s face that only a mother could love, Bucky’s gnarly boxer-went-too-many rounds, that sort of turned into pretty boy baby face of Bucky’s and Sam’s cheesy romance movie eyes. Then the last two times, a jawline on Bucky that could cut marble and then straight up handsome devil that was Sam Wilson.

Then there was the casual touching, between missions to help ground Bucky, pull him out of a dissociation that left his breath just a bit too shaky. Or casual shoulder nudges or claps on the back from the ex-assassin during missions that Sam knew meant Bucky was getting better about being touched and reciprocating in kind. Sitting side by side in a convoy so they were touching from shoulder to thigh, mumbling comments back and forth with warm, soft breath against his ear about the shit team assigned to them as “back up.”

Oh hell. Maybe this wasn’t as casual as Sam thought anymore and Sam had no idea what he felt about this.

After that horrifying revelation Sam realized he was maybe, sort of, kind up definitely crushing on his best friend’s best friend that was going through a lot of shit. Sam also realized that same best friend was maybe crushing back, or maybe it was harmless jibing, regardless Bucky was still going through shit and Sam had no idea what the hell to do with this information. Focusing on missions took care of that for him, at first, and when Steve. When Steve died.

When Steve died they didn’t talk about it. They threw themselves into missions and almost went back to square one, no joshing, no wheedling, no pranks or comments, only Bucky’s silence and grabbing Sam to pull him out of danger instead of the back and forth banter that was as part of Sam’s routine as breathing. The absence of Bucky and a return of the Soldier made Sam’s heart ache in ways he hadn’t felt since fucking Riley.

The shock of Steve’s passing faded, eventually, and with some more time, their banter regained traction, Bucky started smiling again and they both went back to the jibing. Sam had to face his awful crush then, Bucky and that unfair smile, those pretty blues and his rich voice that made Sam think of a soft, easy buzz after a long day.

Sam had no filter sometimes. At least not when he was nervous, he couldn’t control any of his thoughts then. Sam was definitely nervous here and he had no idea what to do about his unfortunately poor reconciling of his near constant dopey grin and his hammering heart. His anti-filter took care of that.

One time during a mission, when Bucky hauled his sorry ass out of an actual inferno, hair still scorching a little and black holes on their suits, probably a little high on smoke inhalation Sam took one look at Bucky’s arm, bright red from the heat and he mumbled, "Wow, I heard of raging hot hard ones, but that's just another level."

Bucky just _looked_ at him for a second, upside down from Sam’s recovery position splayed on the ground. He staring Sam down like the Soldier, but the easy grin of Bucky Barnes tilted up crooked, "You couldn't handle me, Wilson."

Sam bug-eyed him, and damn his mouth, seriously, said, "Shit, is that a promise?"

It was Bucky’s turn for his eyes to go big like dinner plates, grin twitching away. He stood up and walked away, calling over his shoulder, "Find your own way back without wings, hot shot."

“Hey! Get back here!” Sam started coughing when his throat recalled its smoke inhalation, “I’m on my death bed!”

“I ain’t that lucky!”

After he cooled the arm down in a nearby stream Bucky came back for him, what a sour sweetheart, helped him walk back and got him medical attention and they _didn’t talk about it._

Until about a week later, when Bucky texted Sam: _You free to come over?_

That was where Sam found himself that night, standing awkwardly outside of Bucky's place, ready to face this _weirdness_.

Then Bucky texted him: _It's open_. And Sam’s heart dropped.

Some things became a language between them, and that raw vulnerability of not leaving his apartment locked up tight until the moment Sam arrived could only mean a bad mental health night. Sam entered, called out for him but found him predictably curled up on the bed, head in his knees and shaking so hard the bedframe rattled the wall every few jostles. Sam spent the next solid hour sitting on the bed with him, offering out his hands first, palms up, nothing in them, until Bucky nodded a consent for Sam to reach up and touch him, ground him back to present.

It was a familiar mantra then, whispering over and over, “Hey, hey Buck, it's Sam, I'm here, it's okay, you’re fine, it’s all good.” Sam replayed the usual, the date, the location, let him know he hadn’t lost time. Let him know if he needed anything Sam was ready and able, like a sandwich, or coffee, or a walk outside, too.

Sam nearly jarred when Bucky finally, miserably mumbled, "I used to do this for Steve."

Sam couldn’t help the small, “Huh?”

Bucky chuckled, flat and tired, wiped at his face and relaxed enough to ease into a cross-legged position, staring at his hands in his lap instead of Sam.

“Back when Steve got sick, he wouldn't want no one around. But I’d come on by anyway, make him soup or get him moving, just make sure he didn't sulk himself to an early grave, ya know?”

Sam smiled at that, even if it hurt to think on it, now. “Hard to imagine Steve anything but big.”

Bucky did laugh, almost like it surprised him, “But not the sulking?”

Sam snorted, “Oh damn son, no, Steve could sulk emo kid style like it was his _job_.”

Bucky laughed, again, genuine as it was quiet and pulled the ghost of a smile, slowly easing out of whatever hell triggered this night.

They go quiet again, and Sam decided not to hyper-focus on his hand coasting over Bucky’s back, over his shoulder and settling on his neck to brush circles along his warm skin. He decided not to focus on the slumping of Bucky’s shoulders, finally breaking out of this, and leaning on him in the quiet.

"I never wanted Steve to see this." Bucky whispered in the quiet, a resignation in it that stunned Sam still. He waited this one out.

Bucky scoffed to himself, at himself, rubbing at his eyes. "He didn't need to know how bad I was. He just pulled me out of that shit, and that. That’s what Steve did. He knew how to fight out his problems, he could do that. This isn't something he could fight with fists. He wouldn't know what to do. So I just. I thought, if I was strong for him, he'd... he'd stick around, wouldn't see the damage. We'd go back to that normal Steve kept talking about. I thought if I just...I thought it'd be enough. I guess I faked it too good, huh?"

There was another laugh, just as mirthless, just as depreciating and Bucky fell silent.

Sam, for the first time, sort of hated Steve. He was hurt Steve left, hated his decision to go back and leave them to pick up all the pieces alone. But he got it, he loved Peggy. This was the first time it really hit him that Steve had left this, too. Steve had to know Bucky wasn't all there? That he still needed to be pieced back together? At least Steve could have stuck around long enough for Bucky to be in a better place.

Sam wasn’t fully out of unfamiliar territory yet, so he tried to help here, to make this hurt less in some infinitesimal way. "Well, you fooled me. Cause you _are_ stronger than you think you are. You got a big brother complex up the wazoo and you watch my back like you don't got a mountain of baggage, that's _nuts_. Steve thought you were okay, because he loved you, because you are strong. And he knew he needed to go, just like you needed to be here, this is your home. He knew I needed someone to watch my back, right? "

Bucky tried a smile, he really did, but fell, exhausted, while he said weakly. "Why did he have to leave?"

Sam swallowed hard. He didn’t know what would help here, but honest was the best policy, and hey, they were all laying their hearts out here.

"I don't know.” Sam sighed, and tilted his head to get a better look at his despondent friend. “But what I do know is I got my wingman, and I’m damn lucky to have you. So you're stuck with me now, Barnes, sorry, but I'm not going anywhere, you and me, Wilson and Barnes, against the world and growing old like a—"

Sam didn’t expect the kiss. It took him a few moments to process Bucky Barnes was not 100% straight and that their meaningless no-homo-flirting was definitely not-meaningless full-homo flirting. Sam was still trying to wrap his head around the fact he had a big stinking crush on this guy, now tangled up with the fact Bucky apparently liked him back, and up until two seconds ago was having a _brutal_ mental health night. Then the air rushed out of him because Bucky’s mouth was soft, yielding but persistent like it was gratitude or relief. One hand, the flesh and blood one, curled into Sam’s shirt to keep him there, not forceful, but more like the lost-puppy uncertainty from those first few weeks together. Sam was still a little blindsided, but an autonomic response repaid that sweetness of the kiss by pressing back.

But Bucky was _still_ having a bad mental health night. He was not in a good place, apparently over Steve, or maybe that was just icing, they were talking about Steve and Steve leaving and Bucky's kissing him after he told him he wouldn't leave and Steve did and— _oh fuck shit fuck._

Sam yanked himself away, huge eyes on Bucky and the epiphany was like ice water when he blurted out, " _Oh_ my _god_ you're in love with Steve."

Bucky stared at him like Sam sucker-punched him. Wide eyed, shocked, and horrified, like even _Bucky_ wasn't aware of that information or what just happened. Sam felt that ice water dread wash back over him, that maybe he was wrong here and just supremely fucked up whatever the hell this was before it started.

But then Bucky stuttered, no words but rushed in panic, recoiling away on the bed before his hands flew up to fist into his hair and oh, oh no, he was curling back up, face in his knees to reply.

"No? Yes? No, I mean, fuck, I don't, I-I. I'm so confused." The last word broke, said to himself and not to Sam. Bucky curled in on himself harder, barely intelligible when he miserably mumbled, "Sam, please fucking forget this and just, just leave."

Sam swore something actually stabbed him in the heart, it hurt so bad, and he definitely hated Steve at the moment because shit, did Steve really not notice this? He didn’t know? Then again, Sam didn't either, Bucky was a hell of an actor. Sam felt so lost and confused, now, though a hell of a lot more made a whole lot more sense. There was a touch of bitter empathy in there, too, that at least he and Bucky were on the same page in that regard.

Sam swallowed back the next pang that reminded him his crush was, in fact, one-sided, that his friend needed him again and Sam could be counselor again, this was fine. He would be fine.

"No, hey man,” Sam replied, soft and easy, shifting closer so Bucky knew he didn’t have to distance himself, be alone here. “It's fine, it's cool, I'm just. It's not—"

"You're straight. It's _fine_." Bucky gritted it out, as sure as it was angry, at himself, at the world, not at all what Sam expected and it floored him again, whiplashed around to another page of understanding that dug up that last shrivel of hope still alive in him.

Sam groaned, just as affected as the punch to Bucky’s metal arm, since he didn’t actually want to hurt the guy, he just wanted him to look up.

"Uh, no, not straight, but _usually_ I like guys taking me out on a date or two first before the hot and heavy make out, okay? Wine and dine me right, asshole. Here I thought Bucky Barnes was supposed to be the _romantic_ one." Sam sighed, long and loud, shaking his head at his friend’s _hopeless_ flirtation.

Bucky looked up, just as shocked as before, red-eyed and face blotchy but didn’t look so much in _pain_ , for the first time.

It took a moment, studying Sam for the punchline, the joke, or maybe waiting to wake up. Then he laughed, light and hopeful and a little scared, and said, "Yeah, okay. Get ready to have your socks knocked off, Wilson."

And yeah, maybe there were some butterflies in his chest.

“Oh, you better.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos give me life ;u;


End file.
